The Boston Bruins chose 18-year-old defenseman Matt Grzelcyk from the U.S. National Development Team with their first pick on the second day of the NHL Draft Saturday.

They also dealt the rights to restricted free agent Benoit Pouliot to the Tampa Bay Lightning for forward Michel Ouellet and a 2012 fifth-round pick. The Bruins selected forward Seth Griffith with the pick.

With their own fifth-round pick, the Bruins took forward Cody Payne 145th overall.

Boston chose 18-year-old goaltender Malcom Subban with the 24th overall pick in the first round Friday.

Pouliot had 16 goals and a career-high 32 points for the Bruins last season, but the team didn’t make him a qualifying offer.

“We want to leave some flexibility, space and that’s not cap space or anything, it’s just I call it development space for (Jordan) Caron to kind of blossom and grow a little bit more as a player,” Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli told Bruins.com.

Ouellet had 31 points for Norfolk (AHL) last season but has not played in the NHL since the 2008-09 season, when he played three games for the Vancouver Canucks.

The Bruins had to wait until 85th overall to take Grzelcyk. They had traded their second-round pick in February 2011 to get defenseman Tomas Kaberle.

The Bruins closed out the day by taking defenseman Matthew Benning, the nephew of Bruins assistant general manager Jim Benning, in the sixth, and forward Colton Hargrove in the seventh.

Grzelcyk, a 5-foot-9, 171-pounder, is a native of Charlestown. He has spent the past two seasons with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program at Ann Arbor, Mich. In 2011-12, Grzelcyk recorded three goals and 20 assists for 23 points in 60 games with the U.S. National Under-18 Team. He also led Team USA defensemen in plus-minus this past season with plus-8.

Griffith, a forward from Wallaceburg, Ontario, posted 45 and 40 assists with 49 penalty minutes in 68 games in 2011-12 with the London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL).

Six drama-free rounds of the NHL Draft in Pittsburgh whizzed by Saturday without the fireworks produced Friday night, when the Pittsburgh Penguins shook up the league by sending center Jordan Staal to Carolina and defenseman Zbynek Michalek to Phoenix.

The only trades Saturday consisted mostly of an exchange of draft picks as some of the biggest names out there – namely Columbus Blue Jackets forward Rick Nash and Vancouver goaltender Roberto Luongo – stayed put.

“I’m not surprised,” said Canucks general manager Mike Gillis. “You need a lot of synergy to get trades done. You need compelling reasons to do them. If we’re considering trading a very high end player, you need compelling reasons to do it. We’re going to go through and we exhaust every one of those reasons.”

Besides, it likely won’t remain quiet for long. There could be more movement over the next week before the free agency period begins July 1.

“There was certainly plenty of offers that were made, at least that came my way,” Penguins general manager Ray Shero said. “I think you’ll see these things start to pick up once we get to July 1. There might be a domino.”

The Blue Jackets opened the second round by taking Swedish goaltender Oscar Dansk with the 31st overall pick, though he was quickly followed by a number of Americans.

There were 56 Americans selected in the draft, including nine in the second round, led by winger Nicolas Kerdiles. The 18-year-old from California was taken with the 36th overall pick by the Anaheim Ducks.

The Winnipeg Jets grabbed center Lukas Sutter with the 39th pick. Sutter is the son of former NHL player Rich Sutter and the cousin of new Pittsburgh center Brandon Sutter, who was traded to the Penguins on Friday in exchange for Staal. Uncle Darryl coached the L.A. Kings to their first Stanley Cup earlier this month.